About Us

Markham’s newest
community innovation hub

YSpace is York University’s newest community innovation hub located at the heart of Downtown Markham. We help build great companies by connecting them with high-end equipment, access to capital and a network of influencers and entrepreneurs. We are creating a vibrant physical hub that encourages creativity and bridges the gap between large enterprises and startups within the York Region ecosystem.

YSpace is managed by Innovation York. Innovation York (www.innovationyork.ca) is the innovation office for the University with a mandate to facilitate and maximize the commercial, economic, and social impacts of research and innovation, and to create a culture of engaged scholarship and experiential learning. The office provides a myriad of services to faculty members, trainees, students, industry and the community and manages York University’s entrepreneurship program LaunchYU and oversees other incubator spaces: IBM Innovation Space – MCC and the LaunchYU BEST Hub.

Our Team

Sarah Howe

Director of Innovation York

Sarah is a business development professional with extensive experience fostering innovation and developing strategic business operations. Over the past six years, Sarah has successfully created an innovation office at York University that provides a myriad of services across the university and has grown the team to 17.

She has created and grown a pan-university educational entrepreneurship program, developed and manages two start-up accelerators; and developed and manages an 8000 square foot innovation centre, YSpace, as a strategic step in the development of a new campus. In addition, Sarah is co-lead for the strategic development of innovation and entrepreneurship across the campus.

David Kwok

Entrepreneurship Manager

David joined York University in 2017 as the Entrepreneurship Manager for YSpace Markham. Prior to joining York University, David held various roles at The DMZ at Ryerson University, ranging from business development to creating programs for incubated startups.

In addition to this, David has co-founded ZerotoStartup, an educational venture focused on creating curriculum for maker spaces upon graduation. He is also involved with several non-for-profit organizations including SAGE Canada, a youth entrepreneurial program as the National Coordinator and Pledges for Change, a community-based youth empowerment program as an Advisory Board member.

Nahrain Hanna

YSpace Coordinator

Nahrain joined the York University YSpace team in 2018 as the YSpace Coordinator. She is responsible for managing all event and tour coordination, day-to-day operations, and administrative support services for the incubator.

Before joining York University, Nahrain managed the events and operations at the Sandbox by DMZ at Ryerson University, the programming-intensive and youth-focused community arm of the DMZ.

Nahrain also brings experience from the hospitality and tourism industries, particularly in luxury hotels operations and travel sales. Upon graduating, she was 1 of 8 management trainees selected from across Canada by Marriott International Hotels and Resorts to participate in their leadership development program. Most recently, she brings sales experience from working at a leading youth travel operator as a sales consultant.

Our Entrepreneurs in Residence

Our Entrepreneurs in Residence (EiR) will host bi-weekly office hours but they are also here to support you outside of the office hours. Please know that all our EiR have had experiences building and growing their companies. They are here as resources to provide advice and guidance but are by no means meant to complete work on your behalf.

Keith Loo

Keith is the Chief Revenue Officer for CTO Boost and previously the Head of Open Source at Microsoft Canada, Keith Loo is all about building relationships. Regardless if it's with a startup, non-profit, or multi-national corporation - all relationships are personal to him and he is passionate about developing impactful sales and marketing strategies to reach business objectives.

Keith has exited his own companies and he is passionate about developing impactful sales and marketing strategies to reach business objectives. He is also an Entrepreneur in Residence for Haltech Regional Innovation Centre and supports startups on a variety of levels

Mick Bhinder

Mick Bhinder is the CEO & Founder of IAmI Authentications, Inc. (“IAmI”), a Canadian based cybersecurity company. Having worked as a marketing executive for many years in the financial services & card payment secotr (Amex, Discover Financial Services, Visa, and TD Bank), Mick began his entrepreneurial journey over 8 years with two prior startups before IAmI.

Mick possess a very strong background in strategic marketing, business development, sales, operational management, and relationship building/management. He has always been and continues to be front and centre at the crossroads of modern technologies and user experiences, with particular focus in privacy and security.

Judy Chang

Judy Chang has over 20 years of experience in the food industry, with leading multiple businesses with Kraft & Mondelez, and working at the Nielsen Company as a VP in Analytics. She is an intrapreneur, with experience growing two divisions through double digit growth in reveneu and fast-growing team to support.

Judy is also the Founder of Pivot Perspectives, a coaching and mentoring company for leaders and entrepreneurs. She is passionate about supporting startup companies to refine their busienss plans, creating a vision, and developing a high performing and engaged team to lead the charge.

Ben Stacey

From scrappy indie studio to the beating heart of agency-world Ben has been pushing the boundaries of business-minded design for just over a decade. Couple that with 4 years volunteer work and close examination of over 1200 pitches with the world’s premier idea-stage accelerator and you've got one hell of a presentation designer.

Veronica Malinski

Veronica is an award winning marketer with 8+ years experience. Prior to becoming a Co-Founder & CMO at Aerialytic; a company on a mission to amplify solar adoption with AI she worked for other startups and Fortune 200 companies. She has been fortune enough to oversee multiple product launches across Canada, US and Europe where she learned a few tricks along the way to make the process as lean and fruitful as possible.

In addition to initially identifying who the customer and acquisition channels are, Veronica believes that providing an optimal customer experience is one of the most important things to retaining your customer and growing a high customer lifetime value. Her experiences also include supporting projects that focus on retention and loyalty such as developing and optimizing customer journey mapping, marketing automation, CRM implementation and referral and loyalty programs.

A highlight of her career also includes implementing one of the first 'Shop Online & Pick Up In-Store' programs for Henry's Camera where she won an Award from the Retail Council of Canada.

Philip Yan

As founder and chief experience designer of GenesisXD Inc., Philip connects the dots between brand, experience design and technology. Prior to creating his own business with a focus on brand and marketing communications over 20 years ago, Philip had worked for award winning studios as senior designer and design director.

Philip has led the GenesisXD team to co-found a couple of social enterprises to employ persons with barriers to employment, including the award winning social enterprises Project Get Reel® and KLINK® Coffee.

Agnes Lan

For Agnes, there is nothing greater than seeing her fellow peers and small and midsize businesses succeed. She believes that everyone has something valuable to share in the business, which is why she founded the #SmallandMighty movement and started her company, Change Connect, as a way to shake up the consulting industry.

As a firm believer that change management is the key to success, Agnes wants to help businesses transform for the better and succeed in this ever-changing market. With experience in the assessment, strategy, design, and implementation of business transformations in various industries with a focus on sales (customer-focused business strategies, organization design, sales efficiency and transformation), she has a knack for breaking down complex strategies into tangible business tactics, specializing in leadership training and sales transformations

Jazz is currently the Director- Technology Risk Management & Information Systems at TD Bank Group. He along with his team are responsible for providing technology risk advise and consultation what enables the business to effectively manage risk within the acceptable risk appetite to successfully deliver on the strategic business objectives. His passion for "Risk" drives him to constantly train and coach his peers to build maturity of risk management within the organization.

His past includes exposure in the airline/ aviation industry, healthcare and other financial institution.

Suraj Gupta

Suraj K. Gupta is the Co-Founder, President and CEO of Rogue Insight Capital, and is the CIO for the Easton’s Group of Hotels; Canada’s largest private hotel development corporation. The Easton’s Group owns a portfolio of over 20 hotels across Canada as well as residential condominium projects across the Greater Toronto Area.

One of Suraj’s primary mandates includes investing in female, immigrant, and visible minority founders. Suraj believes that these groups of entrepreneurs do not get the exposure they deserve, and therefore over 70% of Rogue’s portfolio companies have diverse founding teams at the helm. Additionally, although Rogue invests globally, another of Suraj’s primary objectives is to support and spotlight Canadian founders by aiding great companies in their growth trajectory. He hopes that the world will increasingly recognize the incredible innovations that come out of the Canadian market, and that Toronto will become a hub for entrepreneurship similar to New York City and San Francisco.

Philip Chang

As Vice President of Engineering and Manufacturing at Morgan Solar, Philip is charged with establishing a world class, in-house engineering competency in order to foster and support product development at Morgan Solar. Through the rapid growth of Morgan Solar, Philip has been responsible for launching and overseeing product development, engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, product validation and technical operations company wide.

Philip has spent years developing and fostering connections for manufacturing and supply chains overseas, especially in China. There is nothing for satisfying to Philip than using his skills and experience to mentor and train the next generation of entrepreneurs. More recently, he has co-founded Envest Product Development Inc, a company focused on helping growth-stage companies as their products ramp from prototype to mass production.

Russ Armstrong

Russ is a sales and finance leader and co-founder of Limelight Platform, the worlds first experiential marketing cloud. Russ ran sales, finance and operation at Limelight for 5 years. Russ's expertise is building and developing teams in the B2B SaaS space, across finance, operations and sales & marketing. He is a dynamic and passionate go-to market leader with a proven track record of applying strong leadership, technology, Data and analytics to achieving corporate objectives.

Bonnie Yau

Bonnie is a Product leader who has been innovating at the intersection of business and technology for over 15 years. She is a passionate team builder and a firm believer that fully integrated cross-functional teams are what it takes to win in today’s ever-changing competitive landscape. Having endured the pain of digital transformation in corporations large and small, Bonnie sees huge opportunity in start-ups getting it right from the get-go.

During Bonnie’s career within enterprises such as LoyaltyOne and start-ups such as SecureKey, she oversaw products for consumers, citizens, and businesses. Bonnie brings best practices and lessons learned from a variety of domains including loyalty programs / marketing, business intelligence, digital identity, authentication, payment, API platforms, and developer programs. Her experience in leading both Product and Technology teams has given her a deep appreciation for the productivity and engagement that is gained exponentially through cross-functional collaboration.

Upcoming Events

Join Open People Network and YSpace on Wednesday, May 22nd for #PitchItYork from 5:30pm to 8:30pm. Join us as we bring together entrepreneurs, investors and potential investors and create a community of sharing and collaboration. That’s why OPN and YSpace have[...]

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Explore • Educate • Elevate About this Event The 6 INITIATIVE Presents: #SALESETTER - Attracting the Right Clients Whether you’re a business owner or working within a team, you’ve got to sell. Your ideas, products,[...]